I love you all!

Family,

It sure would be nice if I had a lot to report on, but this week involved a lot of driving and working with other elders in different areas of our mission. I've explored a lot of our mission at this point and it is so fascinating to discover new parts of the mission you haven't served in. However, at the same time, this week we got to do a little more proselyting than normal, which was good.
Here's some things that happened throughout the week that are worth sharing:

Miracles are not going to come your way unless you have the eyes to see them. On Wednesday, I stayed in Rancho for an exchange, and I was really nervous because I don't know our area all that well, but our day turned out super good. I had such a large desire to find new people to teach because it's something our whole mission is struggling with and although we weren't able to have any lessons that day, we met a lot of great people and had a lot of really good conversations. Our area isn't flourishing with new investigators necessarily, but there are sure a lot of seeds being planted! Throughout the day, I was able to see a lot of mini miracles that may be irrelevant to others, but to me they put me at ease to see the Lord supports us and directs us in His work and in our everyday lives. And for dinner, we had some really awesome enchilada's, so that was exciting.

On Thursday, a missionary committed me to read a conference talk; The Music of the Gospel, which was shared in April. It was a very good talk and music is something I obviously love, so I was very drawn to what the talk was going to cover. It is so true that we can live the gospel, but if we're not feeling the Spirit, it is not something we are going to stick with for very long. The music of the gospel is what is going to change out behavior and help us become more skilled in the dance steps that we often mundanely experience. But with the Spirit, the gospel will never seem dull!

On Friday, we did our first shift of the Cyber Seniors at the Senior Center and old people are a hit or miss. The program is so new, so no one showed up, so we promoted the program with flyers and talked to the men and women in the center and there were some nice people and some ornery people as well. One lady we met said "Leave, I've had enough of ya!" it was pretty much just her personality, but after an hour of sharing the idea, we found a man who needed help understanding the internet, and I'm not sure if you've ever tried teaching seniors how to use it, but you have to start completely at the basics! This man didn't know what a computer mouse was, but throughout our 45 minutes, he really picked up on using a computer. It was a neat and very comical experience at the same time. Then later that evening, we had dinner at a family's house and had chicken alfredo, it was awesome!

On Saturday, I worked in the Chino zone and that was pretty good, there are A LOT of Asians there, my goodness. Then the next day was Sunday and we had church and dinner and did some office stuff for the departing missionaries this transfer. That basically summarizes our week. This one will be good and busy. Today we got invited to a memorial day barbeque, Wednesday we have a big meeting to follow up with the new missionaries that came in a month ago, Thursday we have an exchange with some zone leaders, and then Sunday is my birthday! 21... weird. We don't have anyone signed up for dinner that day and I am so tempted to ask the Tongan elders if we can join them for dinner that day ha! I just want some Tongan food. But yeah, things in my life are great.

Since Koriann requested, a day in my life goes like this: (first off every week is different) We get a normal Preparation day (except the first Monday of the transfer) and we have dinner, then we normally do office stuff the rest of that evening. Tuesday we attend a regular district meeting somewhere in the mission and meet with President Hobbs to discuss stuff in the mission. Then we get to do our own proselyting and we do splits with our ward Tuesday evenings. This Wednesday we have a meeting with the new missionaries that have only been out for a month and we discuss how things are, how they like their trainers, etc. On other weeks, we may be scheduling interviews with President Hobbs for other missionaries, putting together the information for departing missionaries, i don't know how to explain what I do, to be honest. Every day varies. But I enjoy being able to serve in any capability or position, that's what matters.

So yeah, I love you all! Have fun at Connor's graduation, wish him luck on his speech! And of course, have a great summer!

- Elder Bennion